Good Party’s unpaid alliance bill and CHP’s key challenges

With the storm inside the Good Party (IP) raging, resignations and expulsions continue. The main reason behind the current turmoil is the movement’s commitment not to join any alliances for next year’s municipal elections.

The IP leadership’s refusal to endorse the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) mayoral candidates in Istanbul and Ankara caused uproar among local chapters and council members, whom those municipalities support financially, as well as other proponents of electoral alliances. In other words, Ekrem Imamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş, widely seen as mayors of the 2019 alliance, used their influence over the IP – arguably the price that IP Chair Meral Akşener and her movement are expected to pay.

It was inevitable that the IP would pay for its past alliances with the CHP and others. It was going to foot that bill sooner or later. It is no secret that the IP had already suffered from its CHP collaboration. Nowadays, the movement has to risk short-term losses to bounce back and try to gain momentum in the longer run.

It would be wrong to underestimate the extent of the political rapprochement and integration between the CHP and the IP in the 2019 and 2023 elections. Despite the obvious problems between Akşener and the CHP’s previous Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the two movements aligned more closely with reference to Imamoğlu and Yavaş, encouraging closer cooperation between their supporters. Breaking that bond would have obviously been difficult.

The IP currently experiences all the challenges of trying to engage in political activities “independently” of the main opposition party. The CHP, whose proposal was rejected, targets the IP and the right-wing fringe parties (whose parliamentary candidates ran on the CHP ticket in May 2023) by calling for “joining forces at the popular level.”

IP’s internal crisis

Although that development will cause the political storm inside the IP to continue for some time, Akşener’s decision not to join any alliance ahead of next year’s municipal elections could bolster her movement’s claim to becoming the “third way” in Türkiye. There is a chance that she will find it difficult to get her supporters to vote for the IP’s mayoral candidates in March 2024, but this could nonetheless represent an opportunity to consolidate her “independent” base nationwide. The movement might also win over some supporters of the ruling People’s Alliance and the opposition.

It goes without saying, however, that failure to properly manage the current crisis and create a coherent and effective political framework would cause more problems – especially if the Good Party performs poorly next year.

‘Identifying the Kurds as the enemy doesn’t work’

Another political movement, which collaborated with the CHP in 2023 and remains in “transparent” talks with the main opposition party, is the pro-PKK Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), the latest successor of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). Despite having suffered setbacks due to their partnership with the CHP, that movement further consolidated its base and reached out to Alevi voters since Kılıçdaroğlu’s removal – which means that they face less significant challenges compared to the IP. DEM could sell its supporters on contesting next year’s municipal elections by itself or supporting CHP’s mayoral candidates.

Thanks to its ability to control its popular base, the YSP comfortably takes its ideological discourse to the next level. Addressing Parliament, Tuncer Bakırhan, YSP’s co-chair, celebrated the insurrectionist Sheikh Said and described the independent trustees (who replaced mayors with links to the terrorist organization PKK) as “colonial governors.”

In addition to stressing that “identifying the Kurds as the enemy doesn’t work,” he did not hesitate to draw parallels between the situation in Türkiye and Gaza. Judging by his strongly-worded and controversial statements, Bakırhan was possibly attempting to double down on CHP Chairperson Özgür Özel’s earlier claim that “the Kurds are less equal” in Türkiye.

Ahead of the March 2024 municipal elections, the YSP adopts a new stance with the potential to mount ideological and political pressure on the main opposition CHP. The IP’s rejection of a new alliance compelled the CHP leadership to work more closely with the YSP and the Workers Party of Türkiye (TIP) in Istanbul and Ankara.

The main opposition party might find itself at the heart of an ideological argument – which it cannot win – due to those developments. This new kind of partnership, which excludes the right-wing fringe parties, could push CHP further to the Left than originally anticipated, making it increasingly difficult for the movement to reach its goal of “uniting” the popular base.

It seems that the main challenge is to strike a balance between losing Istanbul and Ankara, and being dragged too far to the Left.

[Daily Sabah, December 18, 2023]